grunt work

noun phrase

Hard and/or tedious toil; bullwork, scut work: The machine will do the grunt work, filing, typing lists, comparing, sorting/ Congress returned to Washington and settled down for a month of grunt work/ Whereas Agassi's every second of court time is grunt labor(1977+)

The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.Cite This Source